Hankook Delcam to have largest stand and biggest CADCAM range at SIMTOS

Delcam’s Korean joint venture, Hankook Delcam will again have the largest stand of any CADCAM company at this year’s SIMTOS exhibition (Seoul International Machine Tool Show) to be held from 9th to 13th April at the Kintex International Convention Center in Koyang City. Hankook Delcam will demonstrate the full range of Delcam’s CADCAM software at the exhibition, including the company’s complete design to manufacturing suite and its specialist products for the footwear and healthcare industries.

Hankook Delcam was founded as a joint venture between Delcam and company President Chan-Oong Jeong in 1990. The company has subsequently dominated the CAM industry in Korea, especially in the tool and mouldmaking sectors. It has also been successful in promoting Delcam’s design and inspection software in the country. Hankook Delcam’s user meetings are recognised internationally as the largest in the CAM industry, with over 1,000 delegates attending each year.

Hankook Delcam has won several awards for its work in improving and developing competiveness of Korea’s manufacturing industry and also for its support of the education of engineering students. As well as supplying the latest CADCAM technology from Delcam, Hankook Delcam has developed the Hankook Delcam Automation Solution (HDAS), an automated system for CAM programming based on standardisation and optimisation of manufacturing processes. It captures a company’s machining and manufacturing knowledge so that even inexperienced engineers can produce high-quality toolpaths. Automation with HDAS reduces CAM programming times dramatically, while transferring the machining experience of the company’s CAM experts to all of its programmers.

One highlight at this year’s SIMTOS show will be Delcam’s unique Vortex high-efficiency area clearance strategy. Following the initial introduction of Vortex in PowerMILL 2014 last September, it has now been added to the FeatureCAM, PartMaker and Delcam for SolidWorks CAM systems.

Vortex gives the fastest safe metal removal from solid carbide tooling, in particular designs that give deeper cuts by using the full flute length as the cutting surface. It can be used for two- and three-axis roughing, three-plus-two-axis area clearance and for rest machining. It gives benefits when machining all types of materials, including titanium, tool steel and alloys such as Inconel.

Vortex produces toolpaths with a controlled engagement angle and so maintains the optimum cutting conditions for the toolpath that would normally be possible only for the straight-line moves. As a result, higher feed rates are possible so the cutting time will be shorter, while cutting will be undertaken at a more consistent volume-removal rate and at a constant feedrate, so protecting the machine.

The constant feedrate achieved with Vortex is a fundamental difference from other high-speed roughing techniques. Trials at Delcam have shown that this approach is more reliable as it can often be difficult to predict exactly how machine tools will react to changing feedrates.

Vortex also uses a minimum radius parameter, calculated to make sure that the machine tool can keep up the cutting feedrate in corners and, more generally, for any non-straight part of the toolpath. This makes the cutting process more predictable since the machine should run at the programmed feedrate throughout and not slow down in the way that it could on other kinds of area-clearance toolpath.

The control of the engagement angle that is possible with the Vortex strategy also makes the performance of the tool more predictable because it is operating closer to the optimum cutting conditions associated with a straight-line cut. This means that it is easier to adjust the feeds and speeds being used to machine a particular part such that a tool can be relied on to cut, for example, ten components before it needs to be changed. A tool change can then be added into the program where appropriate so that lights-out machining can be undertaken safely and consistently on a long series of parts, either overnight or across a weekend.